1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording apparatus for recording data on an information storage medium such as an optical disc.
2. Description of the Related Art
As recordable information storage media, discs such as DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, are available. The standards for these discs specify maximum recordable capacities. Disc drives handle such discs under the assumption that all these discs are manufactured to clear the specifications specified by the standards. For example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-222586 discloses a technique for recording data on a recordable area on a disc under the condition that a disc drive can actually record data up to a maximum recordable capacity specified by the standards.
However, discs on the market include inferior ones which are manufactured to specifications below the standards. When a recording capacity is set under the assumption that the full recordable area of such inferior disc can undergo recording and reproduction, and data is recorded, data cannot be recorded in practice in a portion with the specifications below the standards. Even when data can be recorded, that data cannot often be reproduced. As a result, wrong information indicating that recording/reproduction was done is often provided to the user who uses the disc drive, although recording/reproduction cannot be done in practice. Also, when the user quits operation believing that data was recorded, data may not be reproduced, and the user may consequently lose data.